of
existence for me.

I could have cursed myself for being such a fool, and I hated the factor
for sending me on such a mission. It never entered my head to play him
false and try to win Flora, nor did I believe there was any chance of
doing so. Day after day we were together, and with Spartan courage I hid
my feelings--or, at least, I thought I was hiding them. It was a hard
task, for every word or look that the girl gave me seemed to turn my
blood to fire. That she was indifferent to me--that she regarded me only
as a friend--I was convinced. I was a youngster and inexperienced, and
so I was blind to the girl's pretty blushes, to the averting of her eyes
when they would meet mine, and to other signs of confusion that I
remembered afterward. To remain at Fort Royal, a witness of Griffith
Hawke's domestic happiness, I knew to be impossible. I determined to
seek a new post, or to plunge far into the northern wilderness, as soon
as I should have delivered Flora at her destination.

The days slipped by fraught with mingled joy and bitterness, and at
sunset one chilly August evening I stood alone on deck by the port
bulwark. The wind was rising, and there was a clammy mist on the gray,
troubled waters. We were nearly across the bay, and in the morning we
expected to sight the marshy shores that lay about Fort York. Flora was
in her cabin. She had seemed depressed all day and I remembered that an
hour before, when the skipper told her how near we were to land, she had
smiled at me sadly and gone below. I had no wish for the voyage to end.
The thought of the morrow cut me like a knife, and I was lost in gloomy
reflections, when a hand clapped me on the shoulder. I turned round with
a start, and saw Captain Rudstone.

"A few hours more, Mr. Carew," he said, "and we shall have dropped
anchor under the walls of the fort. Do you expect to meet your factor
there?"

"It is doubtful," I replied. "He will hardly look for our arrival so
soon. We took an earlier ship, you will remember, and our passage has
been a swift one."

"It was a dangerous passage," he said meaningly--"at least, for you. I
take it you will be glad of a few days of grace. But may I ask--I happen
to have a curiosity--how this thing is to end?"

"What thing?" I cried, ruffling at once.

"You love Miss Hatherton," he answered with a smile.

I felt my face grow hot.

"Does that concern you?" I demanded curtly. "I will thank you to mind
your own affairs, C